


His Guardian Angels

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Good Sally is Good, Loyalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:45:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4465913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade doesn't lead an easy life, or a safe one--Sherlock in many ways makes that inevitable. It's a good thing Lestrade has people watching out for him....</p><p>I am among those who rather like Sally. So this is for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Guardian Angels

It was a hard case…and harder, in Sally’s opinion, because Sherlock ended up involved. He swirled around the crime site, he dithered and blathered and theorized, he hounded off without backup—

And two weeks after he came on the case, he solved it, in a fanfare of “It was obvious,” and “Of course your people missed it.” And then he was gone, trailing Watson behind him…and Sally glared her loathing at his retreating back as she stood, arms crossed, leaning on the brick wall of the Met car park.

Lestrade, watching them go with a far more tolerant grin, looked her way.

“Ah, Sal…no need to be like that. Come on. Join me for a pint, yeah?”

She shook her head. There were plenty of nights she could enjoy going out with the guv, having a tall one, discussing how a case had gone. But not if Sherlock was involved. Never if Sherlock was involved.

“No. Think I’m going to stay here and brood,” she said, using honesty as humor. “I need my sulking time.”

He considered, then shrugged. He knew her well, by now. He knew that they’d never see eye to eye on Sherlock Holmes. She watched as he climbed into his silver sedan and pulled away. Then she paced over to the window looking out over the street, and watched the traffic flow.

She didn’t like Sherlock. All these years, and she still didn’t like Sherlock.

In Sally Donovan’s opinion, death had done little, if anything, to improve Holmes. He was still rude, acerbic, insulting—and worst of all, an entitled little brat, spoiled to the very core. His conviction that the entire universe was supposed to circle around him and his clever little grey cells stuck in her craw even now, knowing he wasn’t a fake. He treated Lestrade’s team like trash, he ignored the rules for handling evidence even now, he acted as though trials never happened and as though the defense never mounted an effective counter-case. 

He was heartless, heedless, reckless. Just the sight of his long, lean silhouette sloping up the walk was enough to make her stomach heave and her jaw set. 

Some of the team muttered she was jealous. Some meant it as a professional comment—that Sal couldn’t abide that Sherlock was smarter than she was: that in regards to pure, raw detecting power, he was the better Detective Sergeant. Others hinted less pleasantly that it was personal—that Sherlock was a better DS for Lestrade in particular. She wouldn’t be the first DS to develop a crush on her DI, after all.

She knew, though, that it wasn’t that. It was how he treated Lestrade—and that Lestrade allowed it. It broke her heart, even as it left her hungering and thirsting for justice in an unjust world.

She’d been proud the day she’d been notified she’d been accepted as Lestrade’s DS. It was an honor—a real honor, not the cheap kind people handed out like stars in kindergarten. Lestrade was the best, his reputation challenged only by Gregson.

That meant something. That meant something huge. The best the Met had to offer. The finest professional detective in service in England. The jewel in the London office’s crown—and he and his superiors had chosen her to work beside him. Chosen her to be his apprentice, trained up by him. That was how it went, so much of the time. The best were paired with the best. The hot young talent was matched with the hot old talent…and Lestrade? Not just a good detective, but rumored to be a good boss and a good teacher.

She was, she had thought, a lucky, lucky girl. She’d stood tall, that first day on the job in plain clothes—her constable’s blacks set aside, her checkerboard cap stored in the cupboard at home, her baton left in the umbrella stand in her entryway. She’d fretted about her hair for the entire night before, until her own good sense had taken charge and she’d left it natural, and twisted it back in a simple nape-knot. She’d worn practical shoes, layered clothing so she’d never be too hot or cold. She’d stashed a rain coat in the back of Lestrade’s car, just in case. She’d laughed with the team when Lestrade teased her, pretending to send her for tea and coffee, and felt relief when his smile and warm eyes had assured her it had only been teasing…nothing more. He had accepted her as his apprentice, and she’d fallen into step beside him, eager and alert, determined to make sure he never regretted bringing her in. Life had been good for a full month…

And then there had come a case. A hard case. A heart-breaker. 

And then Sherlock Holmes had swanned into one of their crime scenes, and she’d learned that she wasn’t Lestrade’s only trainee…or his most valued.

The first case she’d fought down regret and jealousy, awed at the brilliance Holmes demonstrated, even as she raged at his incompetence as a practicing copper. He was so damned good…

She remembered the end of that case, sitting in the incident room long hours after they’d wrapped up, going over the reports again and again, looking for something, anything to help her understand how the sonofabitch had spotted the vital clues, how he had been able to interpret them as “B” when to everyone else they looked like “A.” It was past midnight when Lestrade crept into the room and saw her.

“You still here, Sally?”

She mumbled that she was just reviewing the case.

He came and stood at her shoulder, looking down at the sea of forms she’d spread out over the plain table. He’d touched one, pulling it closer. “That’s where he clicked,” he said, softly. 

“How?” she asked, frustration brewing, brows furrowed. “How does he see it?”

He’d shrugged. “If I knew…” He sighed. “If I knew, I wouldn’t need him to do it for us, would I?”

His voice was weary. Abashed. Resigned.

She swore to herself that night that she’d learn how to do it, if it killed her. If it was the last thing she ever did. It would be one thing if the guv still wanted to work with Holmes…but she didn’t want him to have to. Not if she could do it.

Time taught her the hard way that she couldn’t.

Time taught her, too, that Holmes would never give Lestrade the respect he deserved. Never give him the gratitude he was entitled to. No—the brat treated her guv like he was two parts stupid, three parts lazy, and four parts malignant. He insulted Lestrade, he disrupted Lestrade’s team, he ignored regulations. And Lestrade put up with it…for the sake of the cases, yes. But also…

Oh, God, it hurt. He put up with the prat because, no matter how vicious the mean-eyed berk was, Lestrade loved him. 

For awhile she’d thought maybe it was romance. She still wondered, sometimes. She was a copper—she was no naif, foolish enough to think sexuality was limited to “He was married.” And Lestrade’s marriage hadn’t lasted, after all. She could imagine her guv longing for the beautiful, Byronic brat who swanned in and out of his crime scenes and spewed genius and abuse in equal measure. But it hadn’t added up.

After the fall—in the hellish aftermath—she’d struggled with it all. With her anger. With her lingering conviction that Sherlock must be guilty—had to be guilty. It would have explained so much. It would have made so much of her anger and resentment not only forgivable, but admirable: a sign that her instincts were right, that she was a good copper. 

“You’re a good copper,” Lestrade had said to her, as the case against Sherlock fell apart in the weeks after his jump. “Look, Sal—I’m not going to pretend I’m happy you went over my head. But I understand why you did. Hell, going by regulation, you should have years since. He always was a flipping nightmare when it came to regulations and rules. You did what the book says you should have done from the start. I’m not going to hold that against you.”

She hadn’t known how to answer. He was right. She’d been right. And…she’d been wrong. Sherlock was innocent. She’d gone over her guv’s head. She’d got them all into hot water. And Sherlock had died…

He’d put his hand on her shoulder, and squeezed it, lightly. “We’ll get through this, too,” he’d said. 

Anderson hadn’t. But, then…Anderson. She’d loved the fool, hated him, pitied him, and in the end stepped away from him as he spiraled out of control in the months that followed Sherlock’s death. She’d kept her mind on business. She’d rebuilt the fragile lines of trust with her guv.

She barely dared admit to herself that she’d enjoyed two years of being his one, his only, his real DS. His sole apprentice. No rivals—particularly no rivals determined to break every rule in the book and still make her look bad.

She loved the guv. Not romantically. God, no, though she suspected that if he’d been a decade younger she’d have been baying the moon for him. But he was every big brother she’d ever dreamed of, every uncle she hadn’t had, every wise professor, every kindly, admirable father. He was her Dumbledore, not that she’d ever admit it. He was her guv.

And then the brat came back, more fucked up than ever. 

He didn’t work with the guv as much. She tried to appreciate her blessings. But she could see the guv frowning over the hard cases—resisting the temptation to call the prat in. 

She was just as happy he didn’t. She didn’t miss Holmes, or John Watson, who’d never belonged on a crime scene to begin with and who kissed Holmes’ round rosy bum at the drop of a drawled insult. But the guv—he missed them. 

He loved them.

Her heart had broken on the Waters case, when the guv had walked—no, run—from months of hard work and a sure victory, to answer Holmes’ damned text. Only to be made a fool of, of course. It was months before he heard the last of that in the break room… “Holmes’ poodle,” they called him.

She hated Sherlock for that, in the end, more than anything. For making the best cop in the Met a laughing stock. For reducing him to helpless, unappreciated loyalty.

For that alone she had fantasies of cyanide in Sherlock’s coffee cup, arsenic in his scotch decanter. Death in a back alley. A bomb in his mail. Anthrax. Anything…the slower and more painful, the better.

He hurt her guv…the best in the Met. The kindest teacher. The most patient boss.

She leaned heavily on the open arch, still watching the traffic run by. The sun was falling. She sighed. She could go up and do paperwork, she thought. Get ahead of things for a change. Or she could go home. Or take herself out for a quick dinner.

She didn’t really care which, in the end. Sherlock’s presence, his victory, had taken the pleasure out of the day, and nothing she could think of would change that.

“He does love your Inspector,” a dry voice said from the shadows of the car park.

Sally spun, frowning.

A tall man stood in the angle of the car bays. He was elegantly dressed—tall and lean. He was familiar, though she couldn’t have said how.

“Who?” she said, uneasy.   
“Why, Sherlock,” he said, as though he’d been reading her thoughts the last half-hour gone. “For all his flaws, he does love DI Lestrade.”

She raised a sceptic’s eyebrow. “I’ll believe it when pigs fly,” she growled.

The tall man shrugged, ruefully. “I won’t say it’s a particularly comforting sort of love,” he said. “But in spite of all the disadvantages, he cares.”

She snorted. “Disadvantages to who?”

“Whom,” the man corrected her. “Does it matter? There are disadvantages to both of them, in the relationship. In spite of that, both…care.”

She grimaced, and scowled. “What business is it of yours?” she snapped, on the offensive, unsettled by his observations, and his familiar strangeness.

He looked away, then, as though embarrassed to be caught out somehow. “I worry,” he said, as though that might cover any questions she had.

She scoffed. “About which of ‘em?”

He refused to meet her eye. “Does it matter?”

She thought about it. “Yeah,” she said, sullenly. “Yeah, it does. Flippin’ Holmes already has all the cards stacked in his favor. He doesn’t need one more person rigging the game so he wins…and the boss loses.”

The man continued to gaze away, but his shoulders rose and fell. “Life is not just,” he said, softly. “Sherlock doesn’t win because he deserves it. He wins because he…fights on the side of angels. He benefits by choosing his allies well.”

She snorted. “And the guv?”

The man looked back at her. He had pale blue eyes, and a big nose. His hair was retreating, leaving a little, isolated island on his forehead. “Perhaps the angels are looking after him, too?”

She rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew what the past decade’s been like for him.”

He considered her words. She could feel him rolling them over and over, as though he could weigh each for adherence to some perfect truth. “The past decade might have been worse without Sherlock,” he said, as though offering a theory for her consideration.

“I don’t see how,” she said. “He’s been embarrassed, professionally endangered. His private life’s been ripped to pieces. He’s been over the rapids, emotionally. And that….that…prat. That damned tosser…he doesn’t care. He doesn’t change. He never stops…feeding.”

The man tipped his head—a rueful, unhappy gesture. “No,” he murmured. “Nor will he, I fear.”

She sniffed, her point proven.

“He gives back,” the man said. “Not, perhaps, as we might wish. But he does return value for value given.”

She sniffed again, unimpressed.

He nodded, then, as though receiving a justified reprimand. He tidied his suit jacket, then, smoothing his tie into place, checking his umbrella’s set at his elbow. Only then did he look her directly in the eye, with an intensity that made her think, oddly, of Sherlock himself. “Then perhaps we shall have to provide what Sherlock never will,” he said, softly. 

She blinked. “What….?”

He gave a crooked smile. “He is a good man,” he said, “though Sherlock may never be good in return. Perhaps we can value his goodness, where Sherlock won’t?”

She grunted, and frowned. “Um…”

He nodded, apparently hearing her agreement in that ambiguous mumble. “And perhaps we can care, where Sherlock can’t?”

She felt a blush rise. “He’s… I  mean…he’s my guv.”

“And the best in the Met,” he said, as though he actually understood what that meant…as Sherlock never did. 

She nodded mutely.

He smiled—a very little, very secret smile. “Good,” he said. “Then we shall value him together.”

And he nodded, turned neatly on the ball of one foot—and was gone, retreating into the echoing bays of the car park, then disappearing around a corner.

She shook her head, bewildered. Who the hell was that? she wondered.

He was familiar. She was sure she’d seen him somewhere before—but couldn’t place him.

Still—he was posh. And rich—his suit said that. And powerful—that dripped off him. And someone was keeping watch over the guv, she thought, as she sorted it out. For all the troubles of the past years, he’d survived and thrived, professionally. He was still standing, personally. 

Someone was watching out for her guv—and not just her, or the team.

She smiled, then. Whoever the tall man was, she was glad he was on her side, watching over her guv. Because someone had to look out for her guv, if he was going to run with the likes of Sherlock Holmes.

And from that time on she kept an eye out for a tall, well-dressed man, and was seldom surprised when she saw him. Her guv’s secret angel, watching over him, protecting him from Sherlock Holmes and all the powers of darkness….

**Author's Note:**

> I have been on a bit of a BBC mystery jag lately, watching tons of old Inspector Morse, and Inspector Lewis, and Endeavor episodes. I keep thinking that THIS is what we're supposed to know in our gut about Lestrade: the capable, often brilliant, dogged, determined detective, with his faithful young DS at his side--his apprentice, learning from him and preparing to carry his legacy onward. 
> 
> Lestrade--the best the Met has to offer. The best of the best. Capable, calm, skilled, determined, not owned by his ego but by his dedication to serve.
> 
> Sally belongs in that paradigm as his rightful apprentice and ally--and Sherlock, in so very many ways, screws that up. He steals her rightful place, he wreaks havoc on her training and the methods she's trained to respect, he even steals Lestrade's heart just that little lawless bit.
> 
> So, sometimes, I want to remind people that Sally was, is, and apparently remains DS Lewis to Lestrade's Morse. She's Hathaway to his Lewis. She's his DS, and he and Sherlock between them ask a lot of her. But judging by the show, she remains faithful, even after The Fall. So this was for her....


End file.
